I knew the basics, but did a a quick search for posts that might explain things a bit more. (I should note I planned to use Fritzing, Inkscape, MakerCam, and GrblController, all free/open source software available on multiple platforms.)

Here’s the “isolation milling” I did with the 60 degree engraving bit. Not bad! You can also see a little mark on the copper board where I homed the machine.

Yeah, I did not have double-sided tape, so I just tapped the board down to my spoil board. The board wasn’t completely flat, and bowed slightly in the middle. I’ll use double-sided tape next time, which will also help with cutting the final profile of the board.

I swapped the bit from engraving to drilling and drilled all the holes. It seemed to work well, so… yeah. (Sorry, no photos of drilling!) I then switched back to the engraving bit to (attempt) to cut out the board…

It worked, but I miscalculated how deep it would need to cut, and ended up lowering the z home and re-running the job again. I might want to use a different bit next time. When I thought the board was cut out enough I pulled it off the machine.

The board held up to the light. Oops! Well, the holes didn’t all work. They were close, but not quite all the way through. I ended up using my Tiny Drill Press to finish the holes, and it didn’t work very well as it was difficult to hit the center. Not great.

I also didn’t cut all the way through with the outside profile. Not a big deal for this board, as it would be easy to cut out on the band saw, but more complex boards may not have this luxury. No matter, the amount of board left was paper thin and it came right out. I’ll definitely use a different bit for the final cut next time.

Here’s the final board. It totally worked, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. This probably won’t be the method I use for all my boards. OSH Park does a great job and prototyping PCBs, and Seeed Studio is great for production runs, but I’ll probably mill any new boards I want to test out before sending out to a fab house. Milling also allows me to have a PCB in an hour or so, versus waiting a few weeks.

Of course I’m (sort of) limited to single sided boards, but most of my PCBs are pretty simple, so I’m not concerned yet. Also, once I master the single sided board, I’ll certainly try a two-sided board, I mean… how hard could it be!?

2017.01.04

The electronics didn’t take much time at all, it was pretty much “plug and play” as far as connecting the three stepper motors and the spindle. No stripping, cutting or crimping wires. The only issue I had was once I tried running it nothing was happening. Turns out the power supply was DOA. I found a 16 volt laptop power supply in my junk bin and tried that, and it still didn’t work (or so I thought.) I ended up cutting the barrel jack off that power supply and putting it on a 24 volt supply I found. It was then I realized that the spindle wasn’t responding because I never set the “spindle speed”. So yeah, steppers worked fine with the 16 volt power supply (but not the original 24 volt supply I got) but the spindle didn’t go, because I’m a fool. All good now! I’ve got functioning 24 volt power supply and a functioning CNC machine.

I’ve used Grbl before, usually with an Arduino and a CNC Shield with some steppers. Some of these kits seem to use an Arduino Nano, but this one is its own board with an ATmega328P and a CH340 chip. So yeah, an Arduino with Grbl 0.9 pre-loaded.

There are no endstops, but it looks like there’s room on the board to add them in the future. I can think of a few other improvements as well. I may add an e-stop, or just an “on/off” switch for the power supply. One nice thing about these machines is that if you make a mistake, like jogging the head too far in one direction, you can just cut power to the motors and the software will keep going, assuming the motors are moving, and then once the software is done, you can resupply power and try again.

Oh, you might also notice that next to the spindle connector on the board is a spot to plug in the laser. Yes, there’s also a 500mw laser that can be put in place of the spindle. I’ve not really tried that yet, and have to figure out the software to control it first. (I’ll get into software in a future post.)

Another area that could use some improvement is the bed. Attaching things with the screws meant to attach things to the Aluminum extrusion is not great. I’ll work on a better clamping system. (Maybe a 3D printed piece, not sure yet.)

You might also notice I left the lead screws hanging in mid-air. I did have a little bit of a binding issue with the x axis, so I just removed both lead screw holders. I think it’ll work fine without them, as the lead screws are not that long.

The machine came with two tiny collets that allow you to attach bits to the spindle shaft. It also came with super-small set screws. I’m pretty sure I’ll lose the screws, but…

And yes, I did actually mill something. I’ll cover that in the next post. Overall I have to say I’ve been pleased with this machine (so far, it’s still early, obviously.) It was easy to put together and it works. Once I get things dialed in I’ll look into milling PCBs, and foam, and wax, and chocolate…

2017.01.02

I’ve completed the mechanical build of a small CNC mill/engraver. I’ve seen these on eBay from various sellers (like this, this, this, and this) and I’ve even seen one on Amazon from LinkSprite. I didn’t order from any of those sellers…

Somehow I happened across a blog post at TC Maker about a CNC Building Class at The Hack Factory. While I would have loved to have attended the class, I couldn’t make it, but I got in touch with Alex to ask a few questions, and the next thing you know I’m ordering a kit from him.

Alex said he’ll be doing another class, and hopes to sell these to other people as well. (I guess I’m one of the first customers?) I was attracted to the mill because it’s small (my workshop is cramped already) and it runs Grbl. I’m hoping to mill PCBs with it, and other small things. If I get really ambitious I can extend the machine with some longer lead screws and Aluminum extrusion. But first I have to get it working… I still have the wiring and electronics to deal with.

I’ll go through a bit more about building it in this post, and probably follow up with a few more posts once it’s complete.

First, let’s talk about the instructions. Remember, Alex does an entire class on building this, which I did not attend, but I’ve built a few CNC machines in the past, so I wasn’t too worried. I did get a construction manual, and it was helpful, though in the end it sort of reminded me of building my RepRap. At some point the instructions seem to lose their usefulness and you just have to figure things out. Luckily, there’s the Internet.

The worst problem I had during the mechanical build was dealing with the rod holders. Now, I’ve used rod holders before to hold smooth rods, and didn’t have issues, but these caused me some heartache. The one on the front right was the first I dealt with. I tried to tighten it up on the rod, and I could not get it tight enough to hold the rod. After I sent an hex key flying across the room, I tried one more time to tighten it up enough by putting a Torx bit in a drill (I know, bad idea.) This just stripped out the screw, and now it’s in there, and not coming out. (Oh, before I over-tightened/stripped it, I tried to put a little tape on the rod. Kapton tape seemed thin enough, but was still too thick.)

I still had three rod holders to deal with, so I took a different approach. I put one in the vise and cranked on it to pre-bend the metal just enough to hold the rod tight, but not too tight. Well, I managed to do that with one of the rod holders. The next one I cranked too much, and then had to pry open a bit with a slotted screwdriver. (You can see in the photo above a little bit of the damage from that. In the end I got them all working good enough, except for the first one, but since the back rod holder is good, I may not have to worry about the front one being tight enough. (It doesn’t wobble, but I was able to rotate the rod when it was just in the front holder.)

There’s a 3D printed part on the front for the lead screw to set in, with a bearing. I have not mounted this yet, as I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Some builds use this, or a metal plate, and some let the lead screw hang free in the air. (The x axis has a similar holder.) As this is not a super-precise machine, constraining the lead screws might not be the best thing…

The shaft coupling is one rigid piece, which means that if not perfectly aligned, constraining it on the other end could cause binding while trying to turn. I’ve used flexible couplings before and they might be a better option. Again, I’ll probably get the machine up and running first to check the performance before I think about upgrades. (I talked to Alex and he suggested that flex couplings might not work as well as I think they would. I’ll do more research on it.)

The mechanical build took an evening, not a late-night evening, but a full evening. I expect the electrical portion to take maybe a few hours at most, including getting it up and running. Hopefully I’ll find some time this week to get that going, and report back.

2015.12.09

This is my current power strip situation… Things are tight, tighter than I’d like, and there’s a lot of power strip being wasted. There are three wall warts, and one of them is horizontal while two are vertical. Originally all three were vertical, but I switched one out because there just wasn’t room due to wall warts often take up two outlets because of their width. (I’ve also got a height issue since this is going in a cabinet.)

There are many options for power strips. Sometimes the outlets are vertical, sometimes they are horizontal, or a combination of the two, or some weird twisting rotating thing. For a custom thing, like three wall warts, often the existing solutions aren’t very good. (Especially when space is limited.)

I mentioned that in an ideal world I could just design my own power strip, and then a friend of mine said “Hey, just get these and make your own case!” And then I thought, “Hmmm, maybe that’s not a bad idea!”

But I’m still trying to figure out if it is a bad idea. I don’t know that I could build a surge suppressing power strip for less than the cost of buying one, but maybe that doesn’t matter. Could I design and build something that would be a better fit for what I need. Now, if I were to build a power strip and stick it into a museum exhibit and then ship the exhibit to someone, would that be a bad idea? Maybe… I can see a customer looking at it and questioning the professionalism (and safety) of it. Would a 3D printed power strip pass muster? It seems some power strips are made from ABS, but they typically say “ABS Fire Retardant Plastic Casing”, which may not be the same as 3D printer filament. This could all go terribly wrong, right?

2014.04.27

I’ve got a confession to make; lately I’ve been busy doing work that’s keeping me stuck behind a computer (or a camera) and while you may be concerned that all those lovely tools in the basement are sitting idle, they aren’t… in fact, Dana’s been putting them to good use.

She’s started documenting some of her most recent projects at twocardinals.com. Yes, my wife is now making and blogging. Pretty sweet! Since I haven’t made anything cool lately, you might as well check out what she’s been up to. :)